More than 30 years ago, a few art-interested young people in the Spreewald region wanted to bring a breath of fresh air into the rural province of Brandenburg. In 1994, they founded the project ROHKUNSTBAU. What originally started as a weekend happening has since become one of the most renowned exhibitions of international contemporary art in Brandenburg.

For about 20 years, Inka Thunecke has been part of the ROHKUNSTBAU team. Initially, the trained literary scholar and historian organized readings as accompanying events for the exhibitions. Today, she is a board member of the Association of Friends of ROHKUNSTBAU and the organizational brain behind the exhibitions. Thunecke also steers the  thematic conception of the exhibitions.

The name ROHKUNSTBAU is itself a work of art. It originates from the first exhibition venue: a concrete hall that had been planned in 1989 for the Workers' Festival of the GDR, but was never completed – in other words, it never advanced beyond the shell construction stage ("Rohbau" in German).

The first ROHKUNSTBAU took place in this hall in Groß Leuthen (Dahme-Spreewald). The idea behind it: to breathe new life into this cultural ruin – and with it, into the rural region – through site-specific art. Many artists embraced this idea and supported the project. After five exhibitions, ROHKUNSTBAU moved to the nearby Schloss Groß Leuthen. Since then, ROHKUNSTBAU has been traveling from castle to castle in Brandenburg, creating novel aesthetic experiences through the contrast between contemporary art and historic architecture – currently at Schloss Altdöbern in the Lusatia region.

soft power is an independent art space and a curatorial project, critically appropriating with its name a political term that describes and uses the influence which “soft” assets such as culture and art can have on political and economic spheres. In addition to exhibitions and other artistic formats that have been taking place in soft power’s exhibition space in a former factory building in Berlin-Tempelhof since 2021, as a Kunstverein with a membership structure, soft power also hosts changing residencies and frequently invites other curators and initiatives to realise projects as part of the programming. In their ongoing collaboration, artistic directors Eva Herrmann and Linnéa Bake are working on critically examining “soft power” as a conceptual framework through curatorial research, practice, teaching and writing – guided by the question how this ambiguous notion can be productively subverted, challenged and reclaimed from various artistic perspectives. 

“In light of the recent and ongoing funding cuts in Berlin and their politically motivated dimension, the importance of this question is becoming increasingly evident”, Herrmann and Bake state. soft power’s basic operational costs are currently funded by the Berlin Senate. “As a non-profit organisation, we depend on public funding structures, which in Germany have long been cherished for their supposed independence from political positioning. In the current political landscape, more than ever we must understand that this is shifting, and find ways to circumnavigate, or undermine, these structures – which is in fact something that we critically, sometimes ironically, allude to with our name, soft power. If anything, the situation encourages us to be more resourceful as we attempt to build an alternative institutional model, and to keep enabling pluralistic discourse.” 

soft power, Teilestr. 11–13, 12099 Berlin

Save the date for soft power's upcoming exhibition in Berlin:
Selin Davasse: Corpus Iuris Artis: II. The Hearing, runnning from August 30, 2025 until September 14, 2025

Axel Wieder has been director of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art since 2024. From 2018 to 2024, he has been director of Bergen Kunsthall where he produced an interdisciplinary program with an international focus and local roots together with his team, which encompassed exhibitions, live projects. Previously, Wieder was director of Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in Stockholm (2014–2018) as well as Head of Programmes at Arnolfini in Bristol (2012–2014). He was responsible for the program of Ludlow 38 – Goethe Institute in New York from 2010 to 2011 and artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart from 2007 to 2010. In 1999, he founded Pro qm, a bookshop and discourse platform, together with Katja Reichard and Jesko Fezer in Berlin. Axel Wieder studied art history and cultural studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the University of Cologne. He has held teaching appointments at various universities and art academies, and publishes in magazines and anthologies.

In April 2025, Anna Schneider assumed the directorship of DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam. As director and curator, she is dedicated to cultivating a vibrant space for critical thinking, dialogue, and inspiration at MINSK. With a background in postcolonial theory, her work focuses on engaging with cultural and social histories as well as their influence on the creation, form, and significance of artistic expression.

Anna Schneider has worked as a curator at Haus der Kunst in Munich since 2012, where she has realized numerous exhibitions and publications with artists such as Theaster Gates, Meredith Monk, Michael Armitage, and Frank Bowling. She is the co-founder of the Hamid Zénati Estate whose extensive collection is on view at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt until mid January 2025. Schneider is also the co-founder of the Hamid Zénati Estate, whose extensive collection was shown at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt and in the exhibition Soft Power at DAS MINSK.

Anna Schneider completed a Master’s degree in Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright Scholar in 2009. Prior to this, she obtained degrees in Cultural Management (Kulturarbeit) from the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (2007) and in graphic design from the Städtischen Berufsfachschule für Mode- und Kommunikationsgrafik in Munich.

Zasha Colah (Mumbai, India, 1982) is curator of the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Her exhibitions explore artistic imagination, humor and oral history, often under conditions of sustained oppression. Colah is Artistic Director of Ar/Ge Kunst (with Francesca Verga, Bolzano, since 2023), lecturer in Curatorial Studies at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (Milan, since 2018), as well as part of the editorial board of GeoArchivi (director: Marco Scotini/Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti). Colah was a member of Archive (Berlin/Dakar/Milan, 2020–23), a community of practice, and co-founded the Clark House Initiative (Mumbai, 2010–22), a collaborative of artists and curators concerned with ideas of freedom. Her doctorate addressed illegality and meta-exhibition practices in Indo-Myanmar since the 1980s (Sapienza—Università di Roma, 2020). She co-curated the 3rd Pune Biennale with Luca Cerizza (2017), and was part of the curatorial team of the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale, led by Marco Scotini (2018).

Valentina Viviani (Córdoba, Argentina, 1991) is assistant curator of the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Viviani is an artist and curator, part of Poly Marchantia, a feminist artist collective focused on ways of enacting plant thinking and entering in conversation with spaces understood as ecosystems. As an artist she has made “The Missing Forest”, a performative walk (Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano, 2023), “Quali voci, quali corpi, quali storie?” with Poly Marchantia collective (as part of the SITU residency program, Militello in Val di Catania, 2021), and “Atlas, fragmentos para la producción del Paisaje” (Córdoba, 2017), among others. She collaborated with Zasha Colah to curate “The Scorched Earthly” (221A Vancouver, 2021–22), and “Extraneous” (EXILE gallery, for “Curated by” festival, Vienna, 2022). Also, she taught in and coordinated “Mater Matuta”, the master´s program of curatorial practice and philosophy of the Mediterranean (ABADIR Academy, Sicily, 2023–24).

The 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art takes place from June 14 to September 14, 2025 and is curated by Zasha Colah. Valentina Viviani is Assistant Curator.

Sophia Greiff is a curator and co-head of programming at C/O Berlin where she curated the exhibitions Daido Moriama . Retrospective (2023), Mary Ellen Mark . Encounters (2023), Laia Abril . On Rape (2024), Tyler Mitchell . Wish This Was Real (2024) and most recently Sam Youkilis . Under The Sun (2025). She is currently curating a comprehensive exhibition by film and media artist Julian Rosefeldt, which will open on May 23, 2025 and will be on view at C/O Berlin until September 16.

Previously, she was a graduate research assistant in the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography program at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. She co-edited image/con/text: Documentary Practices Between Journalism, Art and Activism (Reimer, 2020) and Images in Conflict/Bilder im Konflikt (Jonas, 2018). For many years, Greiff co-curated the Fotodoks Festival for Contemporary Documentary Photography. As a Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Foundation scholar, she worked at Munich Stadtmuseum, Museum Folkwang in Essen, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among others. A current doctoral candidate at Folkwang University of the Arts, she is examining research-based photobooks.

Kathleen Reinhardt, the director of the Georg Kolbe Museum, started her institutional program with the exhibitions Lin May Saeed: The Snow Falls Slowly in Paradise, A Dialogue with Renée Sintenis (2023) and Noa Eshkol: No Time to Dance (2024). From 2016–2022, she was curator for contemporary art at the Albertinum (Dresden State Art Collections), facilitating new collection acquisitions, organizing multiple solo and group presentations and publishing artist focused publications, such as Slavs and Tatars. Made in Dschermany (2018), For Ruth, the Sky in Los Angeles. Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and David Horvitz (2019) or Hassan Khan. I saw the world collapse and it was only a word (2019). In 2020/21 she curated the group exhibition 1 Million Roses for Angela Davis, and initiated the multi-platform research and exhibition project Revolutionary Romances. Transcultural Art Histories in the GDR (2019-2024). She holds an PhD in African American art history from FU Berlin, teaches at art academies internationally and her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc 1960s–1980s (Walker Art Center) and magazines like Art Margins and Kaleidoscope. She is interested in the museum as enabler for artistic research and production, the discursive quality of collections bound to a certain time and/or historical and ideological narrative, and the engagement of feminist thought in the rethinking of art institutions. 

Galerie Friese was founded by Klaus Gerrit Friese in Stuttgart in 2008 and moved to Fasanenplatz in Berlin in 2015 - a center of artistic modernism since the beginning of the 20th century. The focus of the program lies on painting and drawing positions from classical modernism to the present day. Among the estates represented are Willi Baumeister, Norbert Kricke, Dieter Krieg, Georg Karl Pfahler and Walter Stöhrer. The gallery's contemporary positions include Franziska Holstein, Karin Kneffel, Anna Leonhardt, Thomas Müller, Cornelius Völker and Ambra Durante. In addition, Galerie Friese offers a platform for transdisciplinary perspectives on art and has shown drawings by Peter Handke, the Berlin philosopher of religion Klaus Heinrich and, most recently, an exhibition curated by the writer Simon Strauß on the subject of “Neoromanticism”. This year, the gallery is celebrating its tenth anniversary in Berlin as well as the collaboration of Klaus Gerrit Friese, Ann-Kathrin Wegener and Teresa Karst as a team.

The Julia Stoschek Foundation's Berlin space, opened in 2016, is dedicated to showcasing time-based media art. Located in the former Czechoslovakian Cultural Center of the GDR, the venue exhibits works from the Julia Stoschek Collection, which includes over 1,000 time-based media art pieces and is one of the largest private collections of its kind. Founded by the renowned art collector Julia Stoschek, the foundation provides a dynamic platform for media artists in Berlin. It hosts various exhibitions, artist talks, and educational programs, making it a vibrant hub for contemporary art enthusiasts. Its commitment to preserving and showcasing time-based media art underscores the foundation's significance in the global art community.

Founded in 1991 and directed by Marie-Blanche Carlier and Ulrich Gebauer the gallery promotes international contemporary art and currently represents over 30 international artists. The program veers towards aesthetic and conceptual research in the fields of sculpture, installation, film, photography, painting, and drawing.⁠
⁠
Rather than following a specific theoretical framework the gallery offers their artists a professional space to experiment. This allows for a spectrum of positions to be shown and gives the program its independent profile. The ample exhibition space in the Markgrafenstrasse 67, a former industrial shedhall located in the historical press area allows the gallery to show large-scale installations in a museum like setting. In March 2019 the gallery opened a new location in Madrid.⁠
⁠
The gallery has proven to be a key platform for the artists’ development by producing crucial exhibitions for their career. A great number of the artists of the gallery have participated in major biennials and international exhibitions as well as having significant solo exhibitions in major international museums.⁠

Founded in 1903, the Deutscher Künstlerbund is one of the oldest artist associations in Germany. Today, it boasts over 800 renowned visual artists as members. The association serves as a dynamic platform for artistic exchange and critical discourse. Through active involvement in selection committees, advisory boards, and panels that contribute to legislative processes, it advocates for the interests of artists working across Germany.

In addition to its advocacy efforts, the Deutscher Künstlerbund organizes a range of events at its Berlin exhibition space, welcoming both members and international guests. It also coordinates exhibitions, symposia, and colloquia nationwide, focusing on socio-politically relevant topics.

To mark its 75th anniversary of re-establishment, the project »Auf den Spuren Bildender Künstlerinnen« in 2024 and 2025 aims to increase the visibility of women artists and highlight their contributions to the history of the association. The project culminates in a major exhibition at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen. The kickoff show, I’m Sorry, I Can’t Help You, by Ngozi Ahaj Schommers, awardee of the HAP Grieshaber Preis der VG Bild-Kunst, is currently being hosted at the Deutscher Künstlerbund’s exhibition space in Berlin.

The ifa Gallery Berlin, founded after the reunification, has been located on Linienstraße in Berlin Mitte since 2001. It is one of the two galleries of the ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations) that show contemporary art from a global perspective in Berlin and Stuttgart. The ifa galleries invite visitors to view and reinterpret the world from diverse perspectives. At the centre of the galleries' work lies the development of long-term relationships with artists, partners and visitors. The galleries aim to be a place of mutual exchange and dialogue, serving also as a meeting point and digital platform. Since 2017, the ifa Gallery Berlin has been inviting visitors to engage in a discourse on colonial legacies, movement, migration and the environment with the Untie to Tie project. The ifa Gallery Berlin is led by Alya Sebti and Inka Gressel.

The exhibition Display by artist Sara Ouhaddou explores the relationship between art and craftsmanship and can be seen at ifa Gallery Berlin until the 2nd of February 2025. As an extension of the exhibition, the gallery invites visitors to an open textile workshop from the 20th of November. The workshop is open during the gallery's regular hours to people of all ages – families, enthusiasts and textile fans – and can be used freely without prior registration.

With branches in Berlin and Leipzig, Galerie EIGEN + ART represents more than 37 international artists working in the media of painting, film and video, photography, installation, and sculpture, as well as in the field of Concept Art and Performance. An important interest of the gallery is to accompany the careers of artists from the beginning, long-term and continuously. This is one of the distinctive characteristics of the gallery: many of our artists have been with us since the program was launched and are still represented by us; new generations of artists have joined them.In 1992, the branch at Auguststraße 26 in Berlin was opened, an important step and today a central site of the gallery for an international public.

Gerd Harry Lybke founded the Galerie EIGEN + ART on 10 April 1983 at Körnerplatz 8 in Leipzig in the former East Germany. In the early years, it was an illegal meeting point where exhibitions, Happenings, and Performances were held; but the gallery quickly developed into a well-known address for an ambitious exhibition program, already with the participation of artists who are still represented in the program, like Carsten Nicolai, Neo Rauch, and Olaf Nicolai. Today, EIGEN + ART is the only gallery from the former East Germany that acts internationally.

In March 2012, the gallery opened a third branch, the EIGEN + ART LAB in the former Jewish Girls’ School, just a few steps away from the Berlin gallery. With the founding of the EIGEN + ART LAB, which moved in January 2015 to Torstraße 220 in Berlin, space was created where a next generation of artists could realize their projects in a gallery and exhibition context, establish relationships, and integrate themselves as young positions in the gallery’s program.